Note 230 — Chapter XXXIX

I have never seen the Proverbs collected by Pedro Valles, the Aragonese, but Mayans y Siscar had in his library a copy of them, which is described in the “Specimen Bibliothecæ Hispano-Majansianæ, etc., ex Musæo Davidis Clementis,” Hannoveræ, 1753, 4to, p. 67. The “Cartas de Blasco de Garay” have been often printed; but the oldest and most complete edition I have seen is that of Venice, 1553, 12mo; probably not the first. The second of the letters of Garay is not in proverbs, and, in this edition, is followed by a devout prayer; the whole being intended, as the author says, “to win the attention not so much of the wise as of those who are wont to read nothing but Celestina and such like books.” The “Proverbios” of Francisco de Castilla, in the volume with his “Theórica de Virtudes,” (1552, ff. 64-69,) are not proverbs, but an exhortation in verse to a wise and holy life.